significant loquaciousness of Mr. Prattle, and
the aukward gallantry of the Squire; but she never bestowed upon either a
serious thought. And for lord Martin, who was indisputably allowed to be
the best match in the county, she could not bear to hear him named with
patience, and she always turned pale at the sight of him.

But Delia was not destined always to laugh at the darts of Cupid. Mrs.
Bridget her waiting maid, delighted to run over the list of her adorers,
and she was much more eloquent and more copious upon the subject than we
have been. When her mistress received the mention of each with gay
indifference, Mrs. Bridget would close the dialogue, and with a sagacious
look, and a shake of her head, would tell the lovely Delia, that the
longer it was before her time came, the more surely and the more deeply
she would be caught at last. And to say truth, the wisest philosopher
might have joined in the verdict of the sage Bridget. There was a softness
in the temper of Delia, that seemed particularly formed for the tender
passion. The voice of misery never assailed her ear in vain. Her purse was
always open to the orphan, the maimed, and the sick. After reading a
tender tale of love, the intricacies of the Princess of Cleves, the soft
distress of Sophia Western, or the more modern story of the Sorrows of
Werter, her gentle breast would heave with sighs, and her eye, suffused
with tears, confess a congenial spirit.

The father of Delia--let the reader drop a tear over this blot in our
little narrative--had once been a tradesman. He was naturally phlegmatic,
methodical, and avaricious. His ear was formed to relish better the hoarse
voice of an exchange broker, than the finest tones of Handel's organ. He
found something much more agreeable and interesting in the perusal of his
ledger and his day book, than in the scenes of Shakespeare, or the
elegance of Addison. With this disposition, he had notwithstanding, when
age had chilled the vigour of his limbs, and scattered her snow over those
hairs which had escaped the hands of the barber, resigned his shop, and
retired to enjoy the fruits of his industry. It is as natural for a
tradesman in modern times to desire to die in the tranquillity of a
gentleman, as it was for the Saxon kings of the Heptarchy to act the same
inevitable scene amidst the severities of a cloister.

The old gentleman however found, and it is not impossible that some of his
brethren may have found it b